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Friday, 8 November 2013

fan letter for EEL PIE DHARMA


I so love Eel Pie Dharma

Practically everything in it is part of my history too. I was born in Twickenham, and my parents then lived in Kingston upon Thames – long story as we as a family moved away but at 13 I went back on my own as I ran away from home and lived in squats and on the street in an area I felt at home in, which was  Kingston and South London.

And ‘The Three fishes’ pub was a huge part of my life then and a place where both my husband and I went


It was an important place for me and apparently also my husband  as  in the late 60s and 70s we both went there - yet ironically we did not know each other then as we only  met and got together as a couple in  about 1983/4 in Raynes Park where by then we both lived .

But we probably even talked to each other in the Three fishes or in and around Twickenham, Surbiton or Kingston.– and as I was soooo promiscuos then, sometimes I rack what is left of my brains to work out if he was ever one of the many I picked up there and had sex with ??

My husband  says not! He says he would remember if he had ever met me and especially if he had sex with me then (a liar but flattering just the same )
But also adds that like many guys at that pub then he was usually too stoned or tripping ( LSD) to have sex as any part of his agenda or possibility ( this is probably more near the truth)

We both visited  Eel Pie island – again did not know each other but we both went to it as did many young people who lived around that area in the 60s and 70s and as we are 60 and 61 long before we were old enough to be there as we were probably 13 or so? Saw some bands play there too if I remember through the mist of time and destroyed brain cells??

I dabbled with being a skinhead for a while sadly – many women could and did interchange – I had Julie Driscol hair ( do you remember that ?

And when I wanted to take Blues or Dex and dance ( driminal or Dexedrine ..speed ) I would join the skins and when I wanted to lay back and chill smoke and take Acid I would join the hippies – as said women could be flexible with who they hang out with depending on mood, men could not do this so easily

But  my husband was a mod but was a skinhead for a little while before he discovered LSD
I squatted – but my squat was the top floor flat in Elgin Avenue, shared with someone called Joe
Went to a few free Hyde park concerts
I went to 2 the Isle of Wight Concerts – Dylan I think  was 15 then when at this one and I bunked in, no ticket, climbed the wall and Hendrix so out of it remember I was there but nothing else

Stayed with the Hare Krishnas when homeless in central London at one point.
Stonehenge – lived down the road form there for a while in the late 60s , spent many a night stoned on the stones


Worked just outside of Penzance in 1971 met Ralph M and others as I worked at the Station hotel Penzance  where the folk and rock music was held then

Went back to London lived in another squat in Notting hill
Certainly got the clap , a few times and visited clap clinics
Went to the first Glasto and before that sheperton Mallet festivals
Lived on a small holding in Wales for a while


Ironically I live with HIV now – I was faithful to my husband since 1986 but my husband gave it to me when I was about 50 as he was not

Funny how life seems to go full circle in a way as I live back in Cornwall on a smallholding

Yes this book of yours read like a  huge ‘blast from my past’

Brought back so many memories and I have often thought of writing them down – maybe now I will?

V

A Hidden Brook Press book "The Texture of Days, in Ash and Leaf" by Bruce Kauffman

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